Miss. Supreme Court blocks scheduled execution

PARCHMAN, Miss. (AP) — The Mississippi Supreme Court has indefinitely delayed Tuesday evening's scheduled execution of an inmate convicted of the 1992 slayings of two college students.

Willie Jerome Manning had been set to die by injection shortly after 6 p.m. CDT at the state prison in Parchman.

The court said the execution should be delayed until it rules further on the case.

Manning's lawyers had claimed DNA evidence would clear him of the killings.

The FBI has said in recent days that there were errors in an agents' testimony about ballistics tests and hair analysis in the case.

Manning was convicted in 1994 of the shooting deaths of two Mississippi State University students, Jon Steckler and Tiffany Miller. Prosecutors said Manning was arrested after he tried to sell some items belonging to the victims.